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Daily Archives: April 22, 2010

EDISON — Anthony Davis’ first experience with tackle football didn’t come on a football field in Piscataway.

It happened in a basement.

“”When I was 9 or 10, I used to put pillows in my shirt, and me, my brother and my little cousin would go at it in this room downstairs in my grandmother’s house,” the 20-year old Davis said before being selected by the San Francisco 49ers with the No. 11 pick in Thursday night’s NFL Draft. “”We’d make like we were in the NFL then. I guess the pillow were our pads. We did everything in there, tried to take each other’s heads off until my mom and my grandmother stopped us. We used to always play like that.”

His brother, Andre, vividly remembers the roughhousing as well.

“”We’d make up games, and that was one of them,” said Andre Davis, who is three years Anthony’s elder. “”We’d just stick pillows under our shirts and run into each other the whole day. Our grandmother would be like, ‘What are you doing down there? You’re shaking the whole house.’ But we were having good times down there.”

Davis will have the opportunity to relive those moments in the days ahead, only now he’ll need more than pillows to fend off his not-as-friendly opposition.

The 6-foot-5, 323-pounder, who joins a 49ers team in desperate need for offensive line help, became the highest-rated NFL Draft pick in Rutgers history and the highest Middlesex County product picked since South River’s Kenny Jackson went fourth to Philadelphia in 1984.

“”I guess it’s finally time to get away,” said Davis, who for the first time in his life will play football far — 3,000 miles away, to be exact — from home. “”A lot of emotion at once. I don’t get too emotional; that’s not my personality. But the way it went down was nuts.”

The next Rutgers men’s basketball coach, whoever he is, got a big boost Thursday when highly regarded recruit Gil Biruta decided to honor his National Letter of Intent and play for the Scarlet Knights next year.

The 6-foot-9, 240-pound forward from St Benedict Prep, who just last week declared he was looking to get out of his commitment and even went so far as to float a list of schools he was interested in, reversed course after meeting with Rutgers athletics director Tim Pernetti Thursday morning.

“I am definitely coming to Rutgers,” Biruta said when reached by phone Thursday afternoon. “I’m excited to see who the new coach is.”

Biruta’s change of heart, which was first reported by zagsblog.com, gives Rutgers eight scholarship bodies for next season.

SCUTTLEBUTT SAYS: This was a must. With Biruta, Jonathan Mitchell and Dane Miller, Rutgers has a serviceable frontcourt in place. Now let’s see if Pernetti is this good of a salesman with his coaching candidates. Having Biruta on board should help.

His twin Jason went in the sixth round of last year’s National Football League Draft. Devin McCourty will be selected a lot earlier, but that doesn’t make him any less anxious.

“”Jason says to be patient, but he isn’t patient about anything anyway,” he cracked. “”I’m more excited more than anything. It’s kind of like a kid on Christmas waiting to open his presents.

“”It’s still a little unreal, thinking that both of us will be playing in the NFL. It
started out as a childhood dream and now both of us are going to be living out a reality. It’s there, and now I’m realizing it’s actually possible.”

He and his family are hoping the end comes Thursday night, which would mean the Rutgers graduate was chosen in the first round. If not, he will have to wait until Friday’s second round.

We will be offering full coverage on the NFL Draft, focusing of Rutgers as well as other central Jersey products picked over the next three days.

Stay tuned for live coverage from Anthony Davis’ NFL Draft party at the Fox & the Hound Restaurant in Edison. I caught up with A.D. a few days back for a story on how Piscataway High School will make history tonight, almost assuredly becoming the first high school to produce first-round picks in consecutive NFL Drafts when either Davis or Boise State’s Kyle Wilson becomes the first former Chief selected. That alone is no small feat, but when one considers Piscataway High will likely produce three first-round picks, including Malcolm Jenkins (who went 14th to New Orleans in ’09) in a two-year span, it’s an accomplishment that may never be duplicated again.

“”I’m not shocked by it but I know it’s unique,” said Davis, the Scarlet Knights’ offensive tackle prospect who is projected to be picked somewhere between Nos. 8 and 23. “”If you would’ve told me back then we’d all be first-rounders, I wouldn’t have doubted it.”

Paul Franklin caught up with former Rutgers star cornerback Devin McCourty, who is projected as a late first-rounder on many draft boards, and that story will appear on the blog later today.

The educated guess here is six Rutgers products will be picked over the next three days in the 7-round NFL Draft — Davis, McCourty, OL Kevin Haslam, LB Damaso Munoz, LB Ryan D’Imperio and DE/LB George Johnson — surpassing last year’s school-record setting five NFL Draft selections. Other Rutgers players to keep an eye on include WR Tim Brown, who reportedly ran a sub-4.3 at Miami’s pro day earlier this month, C Ryan Blaszczyk, who is about as solid as they come snapping the ball, DB Zaire Kitchen, who despite a well-documented history with knee injuries turned in some eye-popping combine numbers at Rutgers Pro Day, and FB Jack Corcoran and WR/TE Shamar Graves, whose talents were seldom-used in Rutgers’ offense last fall. Also don’t be surprised if Andrew DePaola, a jack-of-all-trades whose special-teams ability and long-snapping skills could make a team very happy, receives an invite to a rookie camp.

Head coach Steve Pikiell came up big in landing the playmaking floor general Monday was a hugely important day for the Rutgers men’s basketball program, as point guard of the future, Paul Mulcahy, signed his national letter of intent, making him officially a Scarlet Knight. Mulcahy is rated a 3-star and 4-star prospect, depending on […]